38 i J I .............. Ih"'. ,. "".'Í<_),,: . .J. .,r;. t , It I 1 * i t , ;:Ii , r ,... .... "" " . .. ",,'4 . .': :.; :...... .:; . > ". .".oo.,.v. <<> .. '" ..1) J'" ^ P ..'. .,.,.':\".. .. " <' ..... ., .,. . .....,'- :'" 1.. < ....,. .,.' 1í" . -;..(., , "'I r--.. . .,. ..""t. ^,\ ,. ", ! J < < I:"' f ' 1: ,. ff ' . 't x .' 'fit ." \ '.' '.' "', . 'i;. U_ n, ..; ,'\..- ... ;ø' /i ,""" "t.' . . ,. <.. ,.;'::::9-:'>> , r .. ,,,,,," , .. x .. , Ì\::<,-' .. "Being adamant is, I believe, my prerogative, Halbersham." vaulting in the middle of the church, picking out a white-sheathed figure in the air, entwined in a rope and holding a lighted torch. In the religious setting, amid the bare stone walls and the stained-glass windows, the mysterious sight was galvanic. Slowly, the form slid from heaven to earth on the rope. His face strange- ly rapt, as though he were in a dream, Petit walked down the nave toward the narthex and climbed onto crossed poles fifteen feet hig h. From them a thin wire rose into the dim heights of the cathedral. Sud- denly, Petit leaped onto the wire, his mop of pale hair flying, and rushed over the black-tie audience The wild, youthful figure balanced a lily on his forehead and slid along the wire while a pianist played Stravinsky. He lay on his back, trickling gold dust to the floor, forty feet below. He sat up and rolled backward. The audience gasped. Flashing a devil- ish grin, he tangoed, his back arched. The feet, marvellously precise, . . touched down without error as they returned from space, though Petit never glanced at them. Then they ascended the wire in slow, sure progress. His figure grew smaller and smaller, the balancing pole making a cross against the rising wire. Eighty feet in the air, the wire was too thin for the audience to see. For one chimerical moment, he seemed to walk on air, an angel released from gravity. Then he sprang onto a shackle between columns over the transept, and bowed. The lights went on. Organ music sounded trium- phantly. Petit descended from the heights. A French friend in the audience mur- mured, "Philippe, he has la poésie." The Right Reverend Paul Moore, Bishop of N ew York, said, "I get flak whenever the church does anything other than evening prayer. But as soon as the performance began I forgot my worries and was overwhelmed by the sheer beauty: it was one of the finest moments in the history of the cathe- dral for beauty and deep religious meaning." T HE austere high wire has al tered only once since man first walked it, in Roman times: in the nine- teenth century, the golden age of the art in Europe, it changed from thick manila rope to thin steel cable. Today, it is five-eighths of an inch in diameter, ap- proximately the thickness of two pencils. To manu- facture such cable, bundles of wire are twisted together in one direction to form what is called a strand, and are then wrapped in the other direction around a core; grease is applied, in order to help the wire run through blocks and tackles to lift heavy loads. Petit gets rid of the grease by swabbing it off with paint solvent. He goes over every inch meticulously . Even so, heat from the sun and spot- lights draws out the grease and sometimes makes for a bad patch underfoot. Petit also watches for "meat- hooks" -wires that have snapped in rigging, the complicated process of drawing the cable taut so it can be walked upon. Petit likes to walk barefoot, gripping the wire between the first two toes, and meathooks can puncture or snag the foot. There are other demons in the wire as well. Light makes it sparkle. "Electric light and silvery moonlight are awful," Petit says. The glit- tering wire, he feels, tries to catch his eye and unbalance him. He keeps his gaze on the horizon or on a point in space. This concentration is his safety net, for looking down induces vertigo, which can cause a fall. With this con- centration and his extraordinary coör- dination, Petit can run on the wire; bounce a ball on his forehead as he walks; turn backward and forward somersaults; rest on the wire, lying on his back, with one leg and both arms drooping into the void; and climb in- clined wires. The last is much like climbing an ice slope: the body's weight seeks to pull the climber down. At a slope of more than forty-five degrees, it becomes impossible. Petit can also walk an inclined wire blind- folded; this classic of the wire walker's .---J:1< ({ ' .. . . ) /; ,,, .,uP